The base salaries are comparable but the share comp, which is generally close to half of comp, was based on valuations that didn't pan out. Now that it's been marked to market it doesn't look great. Keep in mind that other tech companies have doubled their share price or better in the last four years.
Uh, okay, but what you actually said was people were "underpaid compared to industry salaries."
When you accept equity, you accept risk. I don't think that there's a terribly bright future for Uber, but the stock hasn't been a catastrophe so far, and all the other big stocks will have disappointing times too.
In the context of the individual it is useless to speak of average outcomes. Over the lifetime of Uber all other tech stocks have had a huge run. If you had a choice to work at Nvidia and you worked at Uber instead you left $5 million on the table.
